Abstract

Contaminated lands are often the blight of concerted industrial activities in highly developed and industrialized countries. Unfortunately, Malaysia is not unaffected by this issue and thus requires intervention in terms of tightening of legislation regarding contaminated land as well as application of established remediation technologies. Since redevelopment of such sites are already earmarked under the 9th Malaysia Plan, it is reckoned that the next step for related stakeholders is to focus on local customization or creation of cost-effective and effectual contaminated land remediation technologies. As applications of these technologies are still in their infancy in Malaysia, familiarity of such technologies is lacking among pertinent stakeholders. Therefore, this paper aims to provide an overview of the types of contaminated land remediation technologies with regards to their current usage and applicability in the Malaysian context. Technologies such as soil vapour extraction, bio-remediation, containment, solidification/ stabilization, excavation and phyto-remediation are described. It is suggested that a long-term strategy be established to ensure more expertise and technologies with regards to contaminated land remediation will be locally available. All agencies, either public or private should invest in the training of their personnel so that a pool of local experts can be made available in the near future.